Shopping, Cooking, and ***Recipes***

---Odds and Ends from Friday---
After a few months in this bustling town, one might think that exploring would lose its excitement, or time might be filling up with too much hard work. -- But this is not the case, we always find time to...

...find find crazy looking bugs and run to find a camera.

...hang out in front of crowded Chinese supermarkets

...take pictures of piles of shrimp,

surprised sales-women and their piles of starfish,

and even surprised sales-women and their piles of chicken feet.

These ducks don't need much space.

---Cooking---
Wow! We took these ingredients:

Chopped them up and stir fried them:



And made a few delicious dishes. I will post the recipe below when I have time... I might try it again sometime soon and upload a picture of the end result. It's supposed to be a set of family secrets... so I am ever so thankful Mimiko shared these recipes with me. = )

----Recipe - Chinese Eggplant-----

1 Long Chinese eggplant
2 decks of cards worth of thin sliced meat (not much fat) - pork or beef.
3 Cloves of Garlic
2 Tablespoons of Ginger
Oil & Soy Sauce
*optional Soy Bean Paste (I am told it brings out different flavor)

Half the eggplant and slice up the eggplant into fatty chunks (about a half inch thick). Throw some oil in the Wok and fry up the eggplant. Eggplant sucks up the oil and can end up tasting like cigarette butts soaked in oil, but the secret is to smash the oil out of each slice with a spatula as it's frying. Give it a few minutes and then throw them into a dish to relax for a minute.

Back in the wok, throw on some more oil, toss in the garlic and throw in the meat. Once the meat is cooked -- toss back in the eggplant, ginger, and 3 tablespoons of soy sauce (as well as the soy bean paste). Bang, you gotta dish.

***General Notes on Cooking***
The Ginger and Garlic amounts are estimated an can change up based on your taste. I have read a Chinese cookbook over here and both Ginger and Garlic are the backbone of most Chinese Dishes. They are extremely good for you and have a bunch of properties which are beneficial to ones health. (I bet this is a no duh moment for a lot of you, but I found it interesting.)

Using soybean paste and soy sauce made things a little too salty for me... Because I have the paste, I think I will tone down the soy sauce next time.

----Fried Eggs & Tomatoes----
I will add this later, I am going to run and then swim for a bit